This month’s Director’s Spotlight focuses on the National Institutes of Health’s (NIH’s) role in transforming mental health care through research and discovery. Andrea Beckel-Mitchener, Ph.D., Acting Director of the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), co-authored this spotlight on the significant activities and accomplishments of coordinated research efforts at NIH.
In collaboration with OBSSR, the National Academy of Sciences publishes “Improving Medical Education: Enhancing the Behavioral and Social Science Content of Medical School Curricula.”
To celebrate its 30th anniversary, OBSSR hosts a series of events throughout the year, including webinars, workshops, and a research festival.
OBSSR releases its fourth strategic plan, which reflects the rapidly changing nature of behavioral and social sciences research and builds on the office’s previous accomplishments. The plan capitalizes on OBSSR’s unique coordinating role, highlighting scientific priorities that transcend specific diseases and conditions, address critical areas, and fulfill the needs of the NIH Institutes, Centers, and Offices.
OBSSR hosts The Future of Scientific Conferencing Workshop," a virtual event that brings together varied perspectives from multiple disciplines to explore advantages, barriers, gaps, and opportunities in the future of scientific conferencing for the behavioral and social sciences.
The Subcommittee on Social and Behavioral Sciences, co-chaired by the OBSSR Director, authors the Blueprint for the Use of Social and Behavioral Science to Advance Evidence-Based Policymaking.
OBSSR and other NIH institutes and centers sponsor a report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine that examines the evidence for behavioral economics and its application in six public policy domains: health, retirement benefits, climate change, social safety net benefits, education, and criminal justice.
The Brain Behavior Quantification and Synchronization (BBQS) program is a basic research effort in the NIH Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies (BRAIN) Initiative to develop new tools and approaches in support of a more comprehensive mechanistic understanding of the neural basis of behavior.
In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, a consortium of 21 NIH institutes, centers, and offices led by OBSSR and the National Institute of Mental Health, National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities, National Institute on Aging, and National Institute of Nursing Research was formed.
